JtHM: A Continuation, TAKE TWO!
by LittleMaggie
Summary: The long awaited SEQUEL to JtHM: A Continuation. Devi's traumatized. She wakes one day with her memory gone, recalling only Nny's address. And he's not letting her go! Can we say "apprentice flusher"? Ch.6! Was Nny's suicide successful?! Devi's mind snaps
1. Issue 1

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JTHM: A CONTINUATION, TAKE 2

Author's Very Important Moment of Glorious Rambling:

Hello, reader! Or person who came here by mistake! That I don't really know. As you can tell, this is a sequel to a previous story by me. If you just start reading this, you will become very confused, your brain will turn into a mushroom, and parts of your body will begin to sprout unusual fungus. I warn you! Read "JtHM: A Continuation" before reading the second Part! It is only logical! *nods*

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Flashback

Chapter One, Part One: What To Do?

o-o-o

" Devi's lost her memory!" Johnny raved. " Oh, this is both blessed and terrible news!"

Squee stared at him blankly.

" She's looking for _revenge_. Don't you get it, Squee? If she remembers, she's going to want to kill me!" Johnny looked oddly satisfied. " Just like that, we're enemies."

" Maybe she wants revenge against Ian." Squee offered.

" Oh, yeah, okay." Johnny muttered sarcastically. "_ There's_ an idea. What I did to her was worse. Much worse."

" Sorry." Squee whimpered. " I was just trying to help a little."

" But!" Johnny grinned devilishly, ignoring Squee. " There _is_ a way to make her be on my side. Simply, I just choose to make her believe that I'm her friend. And I am. I love her. I really do." He paced the room. " I'll explain that she wants revenge on society, on how everyone she's ever known screwed her over. I'll make her want to stand by my side, be my Queen of Evil."

" Nny, that's _bad_! You'd be lying to her!" Squee shouted.

" I'll tell her, of course, that I tried to kill her. I won't hide that. I'll explain to her about her boyfriend. But I'll leave some stuff out. You know, twist it even more to my favor." Johnny said. " I'll give her a taste of her past, but I can't let her know much."

" Oh." Squee looked downcast. " But why can't you just help her back to normal?"

" Then I'd lose her forever." Johnny said. " This is my last chance to make her be _mine_!"

Squee shivered. " You shouldn't lie to her."

" I won't. I'll be selectively truthful." Johnny laughed to himself. " Yes, I'll explain the past to her. But I'll make her want revenge on others. Expulse her fury on those that drove her to her mental corruption. Yes, she'd be just like me. She can even be the next flusher."

" Flusher?" Squee whispered. " Like the one on the toilet?"

" No, no!" Johnny exclaimed. " Someone who's here only to get rid of assholes. Sort of nature's way to even the tides. And she's the next one, and what better way can she be about it than from an ex-flusher?"

Squee didn't seem to understand, but he nodded anyway.

" And you, Squee." Johnny sighed. " You'll be holding us back. Yes, chances are, you'll _really_ hold us back at times. But we'll manage, you know? You'll get used to us. We'll be good to you. Who knows, you're probably destined to be a flusher anyway. What with your childhood and all."

Squee felt the hairs on his neck rise in fear. " I don't want to be one, though!"

Johnny grinned. " Ah, but its fate. This is all coming together marvelously." He paced frantically. " Yes, I can see it now. Devi and I, both fed up with society, killing brutally, happy together. And to think that a few weeks ago I wished to kill her to relieve myself of emotion. What a fool I was. Emotion is what drives us all, it's what makes us do these things. If I were free of emotion, I would lose the desire to kill in the first place."

" I… I guess that makes sense." Squee concurred.

Johnny grinned. " To think that I could ever be satisfied in such a way."

" So you're happy?" Squee wondered.

" I'm happy." Johnny looked out the window thoughtfully. " Dreadfully happy. It all came together in the end, didn't it? It all makes sense. The flusher order… we'll be a Flusher Family, all of us, together!"

Squee looked frightened. " But I don't want to be part of your family!"

" You'll get used to it. Life throws you lemons, but eventually you'll stop throwing them back. You'll make lemonade." Johnny threw his hands up into the air and laughed. " Yes, this not an ending! This is a beginning! An awful, horrid, bloodthirsty beginning!"

Squee backed up against the wall, looking afraid. He picked up his Shmee doll and hugged it. Squee knew a few things already about life, though. Johnny and Devi were driven by fury inside of them, but they wouldn't harm someone they truly loved. Johnny's feelings had ripened and had been cultivated to the point where he couldn't kill Devi, no matter how hard he tried. Devi's feelings for Johnny had disintegrated from pure hate to mild dislike, and after losing her memory, she'd learn to even love him in return.

Chapter One, Part 2

Where Johnny Tells Devi Things

Devi had never felt so frightened in her life.

So far, things have been going seriously downhill. She didn't know what it was like before, _before_ she just freakishly lost her memory, but she felt pretty freaked out anyway.

" I swear, I don't know where I live!" She cried out to the policeman hovering beside her car door.

" Look, lady, I've heard excuses before, but that's just lame." The cop cried out. " This is a school road. You're driving seventy miles an hour!"

" That's absurd! I've only been on the road for five minutes!" Devi cried out. " _An hour_…" She muttered.

" You could at least _try_ to talk me out of it. Flash your tits or something." The police man continued. " I could settle for that. You don't have to lie."

" So this is the society I grew up in." Devi sighed. " The society that ripened my mind. Well, no wonder I lost my memory."

" Ho _ho _ho! Lost your memory, right?" The policeman tilted his cap to her. " That's gotta be the damn worst excuse I've heard in ages. Look, just give me a house address so I can note this."

Devi blinked uncertainly and her mind spewed forth an address: " 777 North Swamp Terrace."

" Way out in the slums, huh?" The cop flipped his notebook closed. " You get yourself home and lay down. I think you're a bit, er, melted in the head."

" Thanks. I…" She slammed the car door on the cop's fingers. " … Will!" She smashed her foot against the pedal and raced forwards. The sound of the cop's flesh tearing filled her ears. She turned and saw him in a heap on the ground, his fingers clipped clear off.

She sped down the road, back to house 777. It was the only thing her mind seemed to register clearly. And the creepy Johnny that lived there, the only person she could remember clearly, and the little Squee boy living with him.

Devi wondered about what had just happened.

_Was I murderer? Is this just a convenient little thing my mind came up with? Just… erasing my memory? Erasing my guilt? Or was I a victim of some serious trauma?_

She knew that whatever had happened to her, it was bad.

A few minutes later, she was pulling to a stop in front of House 777. She climbed out of her car again and knocked loudly.

The door flew open. There he was again, Johnny.

" Couldn't remember my way home." Devi whimpered, and burst into tears. " I'm so scared!" She shrieked, thumping her fist down on his chest. She pounded at him for a minute or two before he backed away. Far, far away, until his back was up against the opposite wall.

" Yeah, nice to see you too." Johnny replied, his eyes wide in surprise. " So this is all you can remember?"

" Yes. It's funny, isn't it?" Devi sobbed, stumbling into the house. She cleared some rubble off a cardboard box and plopped herself down on it. " Tell me! You know! Fuck my pride! Just tell me everything! I want to fix whatever's wrong with me!"

" Tell you everything?" Johnny asked nervously, tapping his fingers against the battered-looking wall. " _Everything_? Are you sure?"

" Yes. And tell me who the fuck you are to me. _Honestly_." She whispered.

" Well, I'm not related to you. I hope." He laughed nervously, saw her pissed expression, and continued awkwardly: " I was sort of your boyfriend. But then I tried to kill you."

" What are you, some kind of funny guy?" She spat. " Get serious here!"

" I'm serious. I pulled out two knives and suggested that we kill one another. Sort of to preserve the moment." He twiddled with a button on his pants. " _I _thought it was romantic."

Devi was considering leaving very quickly. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw that the door was wide open. But where would she go? She had no place to go. This was the only place she knew, the only place where the people knew her.

" But, you see, you beat the shit out of me. So, in turn, I suppose you tried to kill me as well. So we're even."

" So I guess we're both psychos."

" I guess we are. Both." He liked the sound of that. Tying their names together in a very informal way with just one word. _" Both"._

" So what else do you know about me?" Devi asked.

" You had the worst jobs possible. You answered phones at a fast food joint; you worked in a bookstore; you babysat. Your life was a miserable, dreary mess." Johnny said thoughtfully. " All your previous boyfriends were losers. I witnessed one of them, actually. In the middle of a date with you, he jumped up and ran to the bathroom, screaming, _Somebody put shit in my pants!_"

" I kind of see where this is going." Devi rubbed her temples.

" You had bad luck with everything. Most recently you learned that some guy dated you, while cheating on you, and also took things from you and sold them to get more money." Johnny was seeing the effects the talk was having on Devi. She looked angry: her jaw set rigidly in a slant, as if she were ready to shriek and pummel something.

" And then I just lost it?" Devi asked.

" Well, things happened in between. Me killing your boyfriend among others." Johnny rattled out. " But yeah, in the end, you just lost it."

" But what about my childhood? My friends? Where I live?" Devi cried.

" I don't know." Johnny replied. " I never got around to stalking you home."

She sighed. " For once, I wish I had a stalker. Even though I _HATE_ stalkers."

" Oh, unlike the rest of the world's love for stalkers?" Johnny exclaimed sarcastically.

She grinned wryly.

He sneered sarcastically right back.

Their eyes were locked.

" Mr. Scary Neighbor Man, your toilet's all plugged up. There's dookie on the floor and I'm _scared_!" Squee was shouting from the bathroom down the hallway.

Johnny blinked and shrugged. " Was that a romantic moment there? I don't really know."

Devi laughed uncertainly. " So I guess I'm stuck with you, then? Since you don't really know anything else about me."

" I guess. There must be some reason why you only remember me, right?" Johnny asked.

" Of course." Devi nodded.

" Excuse me while I, erm… help with stuff." Johnny jumped up in a jerky sort of motion and ran from the room to help Squee.

Devi crumpled the tissue in her hands and threw it across the room, where it landed on a dark mark on the floor that looked suspiciously like dried blood. If her only 'friend' as of now was a crazy anorexic-looking spaz, what's to say about her own life? She was probably as insane as him. Some sort of cult-loving, people-stabbing freak.

If that was so, then perhaps a budding partnership with Johnny wasn't such a bad idea. Perhaps trying to adjust to a life that she figured was like her previous one would let her remember the past. She'd kill to remember her past. Oddly enough, she'd be doing a lot of killing soon. Very soon. Aren't I an evil narrator? MWA HA HA!

Ooh! Peanuts!

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o-o-o

Meanwhile… in the Author's Life… Don't You Miss ME?! DON'T YA?!

The author finds herself sitting in a room, with white-painted walls, face-to-face with a gigantic pickle tree. Why? Because she said so! And because she invented pickle trees! And marshmallow bushes! And many other glorious, if not legendary, inventions!

So the author is wondering if perhaps her latest sleepless night had finally taken its toll on her brain cells. Since she was one of the few girls in school that didn't really have an air pocket between her ears, she is incapable of screaming " Like, Oh my GAWD!" and passing out in fear. Instead, the author is seriously pissed.

_What? She's pissed_? The reader is thinking. _She's got a pickle machine! I'd hang an old lady with a toddler's intestines for one of them things!_

The author is upset though because she knows her first chapter of the sequel of her story is morbidly short compared to her previous chapters; and she knows she must finish typing it and add some senseless blather to make it all interesting.

Her cheeks are actually penetrating a vestige of a blush, which suggests that her starved little body is still filled with precious blood. She knows not what to do! Her magical elbow protector of purity is very far away at this moment, and all the muses in her head simply won't decide what to do!

Finally, one thing is clear: She realizes she has created 275 more words for her story and therefore reached her goal word count! And just through this one story! What else could she add?

Ooh! The answer rings clear, and she adds:

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Review or Die! See you in the next Chapter!


	2. Issue 2

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Author's Note: Wow! This chapter is _long_! And it's also a tad more serious, but still has some funny parts. Yes. Funny.

Chapter Two, Part 1: Spending the Night

Devi knew there was more to life than sleeping on a pile of dirty rags in a maniac's basement; there just _had_ to be more. The basement all around her was like a scene from a horror movie. There were chains hanging from the walls, some of the chains still containing severed limbs. Most of it had been cleaned out and polished though, but not taken down. It was simply prepared – prepared to host more torture victims.

She didn't trust Johnny. He went into random poetic rants and his eyes would get really big, like saucers, and then he'd shake his hands madly and run all over the place like a lunatic. However, once he calmed down, he would sit and paint some rather lovely paintings. From bits and pieces that Squee told her, she'd figured out that Johnny loved her, which was confusing for her because she didn't really know him too well in return. She didn't even really know _herself_!

Squee was a quiet little boy and Devi found very little wrong with him other than just general trauma from being around someone like Johnny. Devi's dead ex-boyfriend had tortured Squee, and Johnny had freed Squee from the mental hospital and took him in. It was somewhat more believable to hear such tales from the mouth of a little boy.

Squee was huddled up next to her now, his tiny little chest rising in shallow, frightened breaths. For such a little vestibule of childish fear, he was rather bright. She saw him writing stories and poems all day in a ragtag blank diary that Johnny had given him.

" Should I be afraid of Nny?" Devi whispered into the night air.

" No." Came a soft reply.

She sat up and saw a dark silhouette sitting on the window seat, the starry sky behind it. The silhouette turned, now in profile to Devi. It was Johnny.

He blinked and added: " Sorry if I scared you. I was here for a while."

" Why are you staring out the window? Are the neighbors changing into their pajamas or something?" Devi joked.

" The moon's out." He brought his legs up to his chest, making himself as compact as he could. " It's funny that the moon sees everything in a completely different way. The sun sees the world solely as a wonderland, filled with colors and slowly moving cars. But the moon – he sees the world as dark and frightening, you know? A world of lonely highway stretches and speeding car lights. It's so skewed. Two things that are so same-faced see the world differently."

" I never thought about it that way." Devi said. " Were you always so poetic?"

" I don't know. I don't really remember too far back." Johnny admitted.

" What happened to you, anyway? I know less about you than I know about me." Devi smiled weakly.

" I don't know." He repeated. " It feels like I've been this way forever. Just confused and filled with… with _desires_."

She raised her eyebrows.

" Not sexual ones!" Johnny groaned. " I mean… predatory ones… you know. Eliminating those that hurt me, the whole cheese-filled chalupa."

" What makes you kill?" Devi demanded. "And was I a killer? Before?"

" Maybe." Johnny smiled wryly. " And as for me, I don't know. I've been thinking about it. At first it was just this idea that it was the way things were supposed to be. It was my slow desensitization towards others. But then - - then it became messy. The whole flusher thing."

" You told me." Devi nodded. " You think I'm the next flusher, don't you?"

" I think that's why it happened to you." Johnny said, honestly. " People don't wake up with an empty mind, with only my name carved into their brains, for kicks."

" It feels like I'm in a _really_ bad science fiction movie." Devi groaned. " Were _all_ my friends like this? Did they all think they were superheroes?"

" I am _not_ a superhero!" Johnny shouted. He ripped something off the wall and threw it at her. " Take Mr. Samsa here! I kill him and kill him and yet he returns, like the death defying monster he is! What sort of superhero can go on like this, destroying something that will never be vanquished?" He covered his face with his hands, his body quivering as he laughed. " Can you imagine what it was like for so long? To kill people over and over, only to see more just like them appear? You think I _want_ this? Sometimes I wish I could be normal! Sometimes I look outside and wish I could be one of _them_, but then they have to go and do something _stupid._ Insult me. Prove that the world is beyond repair."

Devi looked at the thing he'd thrown. It was a cockroach. She gasped and smashed it with her heel. " You don't have to do it though! Why can't you just become a hermit or something? Live on your own?"

" I've been doing that for a while. I tried to separate myself from the world." Johnny said.

" Why didn't it work?"

" You came into my life again. It was like a second chance."

Devi's face warmed in a blush she couldn't control.

" I think its nature taking its toll. There must be someone out there to just go out and remove the weeds so that some flowers can grow." Johnny sighed. " And as long as we're flushers, we're protected. We can't be discovered. The cops will never catch on."

Devi sighed in relief. " I sort of cut off a cop's fingers yesterday, you see…" She explained, seeing Johnny's expression.

He let out a manic laugh and then threw the window open. " I'll be back." He whispered, and then crawled out, looking like a praying mantis, thin and all angles. Wherever he was going, it was a fascinating impulse of his.

She laid back and tried to fall asleep again. But she saw that she couldn't. Her body didn't understand sleep. It was a lost function now. Her brain was in flusher mode – completely capable and self-reliant. Outwardly impulses like sleep, sex, human contact and food weren't necessary any more.

Suddenly, being so close to Squee was all too close, it was as if the foot of room between them became only a hair's width of distance, as if their flesh was stapled together. Being so disgustingly close to a human…

__

What's going on with me?

Devi shuddered and backed up against the wall.

Suddenly she understood Johnny completely, but she didn't understand anything else at all.

The window stood open beckoningly. She felt the impulse, like a magnetic tide. She wanted to go out; follow Johnny.

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Would I dare?

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o-o-o
    
    Chapter Two, Part 2: The Nightclub

A large, colorful sign was taped to the door of the nightclub. It showed a happy couple dancing together, their eyes sparkling, both looking perfectly handsome, and not at all influenced by the booze flowing happily around them or the thick smell of cigarettes in the air. Just like that, they looked horridly, gruesomely happy. _Yeah, except it's nothing like that_, Johnny thought, entering the club.

It was dark inside, absolutely and horribly black.

His eyes adjusted very slowly. The one thing he could make out was the dimly-lit stage, on which a girl in a short white skirt and tall pink go-go boots was dancing around, stomping her feet on the floor, shrieking into the microphone: " YOU TORE MY HEART OUT! I'LL GOUGE YER EYES OUT! FUCKIN' MEN! FUCKIN' MEN!" The chorus was impossibly annoying.

All the women in the club were bobbing along to the song. There were woman couples dancing on the floor.

Johnny slunk back into the shadows. _A lesbian club?_

But then he saw them – the men, all lined up against the walls. They were there, too; they were simply embarrassed to dance to a song like this.

Suddenly, someone jumped up, screaming. " My hand's on fire!" The man shrieked.

Laughter broke out.

The man ran out into the middle of the dance parquet, scattering the dancing women. The man raised his fist, which was not on fire at all. He flapped it around in the air. "Don't you see the flames? Don't you?"

" I think someone's pierced their head too many times!" One of the stage performers boomed into the microphone. " They must've let all their brains leak out or something!"

" Someone get him off the DAMN FLOOR!" The singer screeched, her voice booming from the speakers.

" Is this part of the show?" A girl asked Johnny uncertainly. " It's my first time here."

He turned and saw it was Devi. " What're you doing here?" Johnny exclaimed.

" I followed you." Devi smiled. " So you're pretty social, huh? You're just psychotically insane on your free time?"

" I only come here to inspire myself. To realize what the world has come to, and how bad it would be if I were to neglect my flusher job. Can you imagine some of these people reproducing and filling the world with their filth?" He glanced at the stage performers.

The band had moved off the stage and ran towards the crazy man kneeling on the floor.

" Your hand isn't on fire, you dumbass! This is _our_ show!" The bassist was saying.

The vocals girl was looking bona fide angry. She shoved the man back into the crowd. " Go take some meds and come back when YOU'RE NOT A FUCKING MAN!" She shouted, and then burst into song again.

" That's cruel." Johnny said, finally. " They should help him."

Devi nodded. " They booked the stage though. It would be oh-so-terrible to earn a few dollars less because they chose to help another human being."

Johnny looked at her.

" Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Devi asked him.

" That we should leave?" Johnny said miserably.

" No! We should take the microphone and give these people a _talk_. This jerk group is just too much." Devi stamped out onto the parquet.

" What are you doing?" Johnny shouted after her.

" Nny! Come on! Live a little!" She laughed.

He shook his head and stayed put. He wasn't getting involved. Everyone would laugh at him; the whole damn club.

Devi grabbed the microphone from the singer woman and screamed into it: " Hey! Having fun, everyone?"

A few people booed. I don't know why. My new nickname is Filler Goth. That I do know why.

" Look at yourselves. You call yourself outcasts, but look at what you just did! You had no desire to help the weak, the battle scarred psychotic people!" Devi crowed into the microphone.

Johnny looked around nervously. The people in the club didn't seem to like Devi's speech too much. Perhaps it was too much reality for them to stomach. There was a wave of silence, then a wave of tittering similar to the sound of a dissatisfied crowd at a concert after finding out the show has been cancelled. The place was just _asking_ for a massive riot. This was the perfect powder keg to spark it.

" Devi!" He shouted suddenly. " Duck!"

A glass of absinthe flew over Devi's head, smashing into the wall behind her. Glass sprinkled her shoulders.

That's when something scary seemed to happen to Devi. Johnny couldn't really put his thumb down at what that change in her eyes was, until he recognized himself in the dangerous gleam in her eyes.

" So, you unforgivably drunk, insolent fools!" Devi thundered into the microphone. " You want to resort to senseless violence to get to your ends? To beat up every little roadblock in your way! That is the life, isn't it?"

" Shut up! We want to listen to Road Killed Girl Toad!" Someone spoke up.

" Shut up." Devi repeated. " _Shut up_? Do you say shut up to your conscience? Your voice of reason?"

" Get out of here, you weirdo!" Someone muttered.

The stage singer kicked Devi in the butt with her pink boots and then yanked the microphone from her hands. " I think you've had a bit too much to drink too." The singer laughed into the microphone. The singer's voice then resumed the song: " YEAH! I WANT TO CHOKE YOU WITH A CORD! SUFFOCATION DEATH! FUCKIN' MEN! FUCKIN – GACK!"

Everyone stared.

The cord of the microphone had been wound a few times around the thin supple neck of the singer. She looked on the verge of being asphyxiated suddenly; and then all the veins in her neck began to bulge, and suddenly she passed out on the floor. A knife sailed through the air and Devi caught it.

Johnny had tossed it to her.

Johnny stepped up onto the parquet and pulled out a knife as well. " I could use some senseless gore right now." Johnny said, looking at Devi.

She looked nervous, and a bit frightened by the astonishing power of letting her emotions take over. But then, she succumbed and nodded. Devi flexed her wrist and stared at the frightened looking crowd. It was so much easier to be able to just let every wave of violent emotion and every surge of anger and pain wash over you, to wash over you like a wave and smash you against the shores of satisfaction. Quick, easy, meant to be.

They worked swiftly as the single lightbulb on the ceiling flickered dimly, blood splattering it and sending it swinging back and forth.

Many miles away, Squee woke up all alone, looked around, and hugged Shmee. " Did you just hear screaming, Shmee?" He asked softly.

The teddy bear stared back blankly.

****

o-o-o

Meanwhile… Somewhere That Doesn't Have Much Fresh Air

A group of children were sitting around a lunch table, enjoying their lunches like most people sitting by lunch tables do. There was a lovely spaghetti for lunch with garlic bread.

Little Mandie was the head of the table. She was popular, a cheerleader, she was gorgeous and had long flowing golden curls all the way down to her buns. She was right now cutting through her spaghetti when she saw IT.

She shrieked and jumped up.

There was a severed tongue in her spaghetti!

And then her friend, Brittanie, found a finger in her salad. This would probably frighten any girl, but Brittanie was REALLY scared because once, as a child, a truck the shape of a dismembered finger ran over her dog.

Brittanie and Mandie were shrieking for help.

Just then, the pipes over them burst and acid poured all over them. They melted in slow motion, and so everyone could see their skin slowly melt apart and their brains ooze out. It was like poetry, except violent! And everyone knows that Poetry + Carnage = ART!

And out of nowhere, Maggie, the magical fan fiction writer of doom, appeared. She looked around, saw the mess around her, and wrote something on the wall:

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Please Review, See you Next Chapter!


	3. Issue 3

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Author's Note: I wrote this chapter during another of my awesome flashes of inspiration. I warn you; there is a plot twist in here that will stab your heart open like a massive chest wound! And then the plot twist will pull your heart out and jam it into the mouth of a rabid albino tree monkey! And then you'll hear me cackling many miles away! *looks around* Feels like I'm forgetting something…

**Chapter Three, Part One: Squee Returns To School**

Squee knew that he'd have to go back to school, sooner or later. Perhaps it was his inner intuition that let him know; perhaps it was just the fact that he wanted to be alone in Johnny's house as little as possible. So, after talking very briefly to Johnny about it, he found himself walking towards the school building, his book bag nestled softly against his back.

Once he found himself standing on the school lot, he realized just how lucky he was to spend the summer in the mental hospital. For, after all, nearly all the kids had spent the summer playing video games, until the subliminal messages in the games made them do maddening things of despicable horror. Elaborating on it is forbidden; the government knows I know too much already anyway. I'll wake up one day with a governmental sniper at my bedroom window and a bullet hole in my head. HAH! You cannot kill me, President Bush! I became immortal long ago! Join me in my ritualistic pig blood drinking! But I digress…

Squee looked around the schoolyard. There were the usual cliques – the older, darker, scarier gothic kids slouching against the building side, chatting about music and the like; the popular kids, all talking about who was more drunk over the weekend; the innocent kids, or the younger kids that didn't get into any cliques yet; the nerds, talking about the latest update in the world of RAM and DOS; and then Squee. Squee was in a group all of his own. Everyone belonged somewhere, but he didn't belong anywhere. Practically the whole school used him as their kickball.

" Move it, butthole." Someone shoved past him.

Squee stared at the bully.

The bully stared back at him.

Squee's lower lip trembled and his eyes widened in the ever popular trademarked Squee-face.

" You're that kid! That crazy one that they locked up!" The bully exclaimed. " Did someone break you out or something?"

" No." Squee whimpered. The last thing he wanted to do was get Johnny in trouble, after all the trouble Johnny went through to break Squee out and kill the evil doctor Ian and all that good crap. Now that I summarized the story so far, read on.

" Yeah." The bully looked up at the sky. " My mom says that you're different and that's bad. So prepare to taste FIST!" The bully lifted his fist threateningly. Ooh, violence against small children! I tremble!

Squee shrank back, his pupils dilating in fear. " Please don't… and… um… I'll read that sign on your back!"

" I don't got's no sign on my back." The bully replied.

" Yeah you do." Squee read the paper taped to the bully's back. " It says… 'This boy was run over by a truck, leaving him severely retarded. Forgive his audacity'."

" You can read. You suck." The bully muttered. " Now hold still so I can beat your bagel flat."

" But I like my bagel the way it is!" Squee cried out. " And aren't you upset at _all_?"

" Uh… yeah." The bully stopped and thought about it. " Hey! That note said I'm retarded! That's so gay!"

Squee blinked at the bully's crudeness.

The bully shouted: " I bet you planted that note, you little cock master!"

Squee was getting very frightened indeed. He gasped and huddled into a little ball on the ground, hoping to shrink into the size of a pill bug and roll away. I like pill bugs. I recollect doing obscene science experiments on them. I remember the one that ended up dying halfway through. He was weak. He deserved to die.

The bully planted a huge punch on Squee. The little Squee rocked in pain. His eyes filled with tears. The tears slid from beneath his eyelids and washed down his cheeks. As much as Squee hated crying in front of bastards, this was one time that he simply couldn't hold the tears in.

School had begun, and already he was lunchmeat.

****

o-o-o

Meanwhile: In the Dark Danky Doom of the Internet! GASP!

They were having a meeting again. The online group, Internet Addicts Anonymous That Get Scammed Easily, helped solve people's internet addiction, which led them to be scammed. The group met for 23 hours at a time and were asked to submit their Social Security number and Credit Card number to the Moderator each time. A small fee of $20000 was to be deducted each time they consequently visited the page. But the cure _will_ be found!
    
    On this particular meeting, one of them had some scary news.

****

RahRahSallie: "OMG!"

****

PornSiteLUVR: " What? Did you go to that Obscene Granny Fucks Donkey site? Oooh man, that was sweet."

****

RahRahSallie:" There's someone in my basement! Omigod! I totally heard them break in!"

****

PornSiteLUVR: " Is that sexual innuendo? Are you telling me you're getting wet listening to my sweet erotic voice?"

****

RahRahSallie: " Um, like, we're typing, not talking, so I can't hear anything erotic, and OMG! He has a knife! It's a freaky skinny guy with a knife!"

****

PornSiteLUVR: "Sounds like a fetish to me!"

****

RahRahSallie: "He's in my doorway! Call the cops! My address is 7734 North Poop On a Stick Drive!"

****

PornSiteLUVR: "This sounds like something from one of my sexual role plays. Mmm…. Sex."

****

RahRahSallie: " Like, totally help! I would get offline if I could to call the cops, but I'm totally addicted to the internet!"

****

RahRahSallie: " OMG he is so totally lifting his knife, I KNEW I shouldn't have insulted him yesterday, when I 

****

PornSiteLUVR: " flash him. Maybe he'll faint."

****

PornSiteLUVR: " Sallie?"

****

PornSiteLUVR: " Sallie? You there?"

****

PornSiteLUVR: " ooh. You're dead now! Even sexier! I am so turned on…. Mmm… ohhh yeah….. ohhhh…."

****

o-o-o

Chapter Three, Part 2: Squee Needs Cheering Up!

Squee came home covered in bruises and cuts. Johnny opened the door after just one ring, for he was always preying right by the door, peeking out the window at the street. He looked down at the ratty-looking little kid standing on his steps and frowned. "Poor Squee!" Johnny sighed. " You got beat up."

Squee nodded dumbly, his chin trembling.

" I don't really have anything to heal people with." Johnny thought to himself. He looked back into the house and said: " Devi! Did you find any healing items in the house while you were cleaning it?"

" Nope. Shh! It's that diarrhea commercial on TV!" Devi was cackling insanely just as the commercial rolled to an end. " What happened?" She asked, standing up off their new couch. Devi and Johnny found it in an alley. There was nothing wrong with it, except that someone had stuffed a corpse into one of the cushions. Johnny got rid of it and stuffed the cushion with rags. It looked lumpy, but less lumpy than with the corpse stuffing.

" I got beat up…!" Squee began to cry. Sobs racked his tiny little body.

" Hug him, or something." Johnny exclaimed, panicking. He sure as hell didn't want to touch Squee.

Devi knelt in front of Squee and held out her hands, but she felt as if there was an invisible barrier there. There was something almost unwelcome to her senses now – something that feared such close contact with another being. She frowned and forced her arms around Squee anyway. " Poor kid." She whispered. " Johnny, I don't really _know_ this kid. What am I supposed to do now?"

" You're the one that babysat kids, right?" Johnny replied. " I don't remember _ever_ dealing with kids. I don't remember _being_ a kid."

" Tell me a story." Squee demanded.

" Uh…" Devi's eyes widened. " I… guess I can." She smiled, oddly satisfied with the idea.

" Meanwhile, Squee, tell me the names and addresses of these little bullies." Johnny demanded.

" Why?" Squee exclaimed nervously.

" Let's just say that I'm glad I sharpened my knives." Johnny grinned wickedly.

Squee shivered in fear and cried harder.

" Nny, you are _not_ helping!" Devi moaned, staring at Squee. There was a little snot bubble coming out of his nose. He tilted his face towards her shirt and she found a glistening little smear on her shirt. " Yuck." She whispered angrily.

" Squee, uh…" Johnny shrugged. " … you should get used to being bullied. I mean, think about it. To be a flusher you need something to fuel you. If you get so upset with being bullied, you punish yourself for their bullying. If you get upset at _them_, then you're punishing _them_! Get it?"

Squee nodded slowly. " I don't wanna be a flusher." He whimpered finally, wiping his eyes.

" It's going to be pretty hard to grow up normal in this house." Johnny warned him.

" We're not exactly good parents. I mean…" Devi blushed. " Nny and I, we're not even close. Hell, I just met him a while ago. And I met you a while ago, too. We're all practically strangers."

Johnny nodded. " So it's going to be really hard to grow up normal in a house like this. Since all you'll know for a _long_ time is… erm… criminal going's on."

Devi nodded in agreement and hugged Squee tighter. " But you sure are _cute_!"

Squee's eyes stared wide-eyed in horror. He felt as if he just got himself out of the frying pan and into the fire, somehow.

****

o-o-o

Meanwhile: A Pep Talk From The Author

Do you find yourself walking around without a goal in life? Do you realize your life has becoming boring and meaningless? Did your fashion sense disintegrate into being a walking billboard for companies like K*Nikidas or whatever is popular nowadays? Does everything seem meaningless? Are you morbidly depressed and completely unsatisfied with your life?

Take out a magic marker. Draw a dotted line on your wrists. Write "Slit here" on them.

Stare at your wrist.

And bash your head with it. Just hard enough to cave your face in. Now realize that you need to do it ANOTHER way…

End it now! End your misery! End your awful pain, supplement your desires! And…

Enjoy an ice cream sundae. Mmm!

"You want ice cream. You love it. You are meaningless without ice cream!"

**__**

This has been a public service announcement from Maggie. Quote from Invader Zim. Rights reserved and all that crap!

o-o-o

Chapter 3, Part 3: Devi's Thoughts

Devi sat on the couch, staring at the flashing pictures on the TV screen, and couldn't help but think bad thoughts. Her mind was overflowing with them; she was absolutely overwrought with them. Her eyes were unfocused, her lips were parted, and her breath was shallow.

She had remembered it. Everything.

She knew it was too good to last.

It was some freakish momentary thing; for a few days, her memory must have gone blank. She must have gone into flusher mode by some odd disorder of the universe. Perhaps her brain had been affected by some unusual belch of fate. Now she was back; her memory was back; everything flashed before her eyes.

She had killed. Not just one person, but a whole bunch of people.

She was living with Johnny, willingly waltzing back into his life. NNY! THE MANIAC! The insane creep that tried to KILL her! And he was in possession of children! (At least it's better than Michael Jackson).

Devi shivered. What was she going to do now?

She was away from home for almost half a week now. She stood, slowly. She didn't know what to do. She sure as hell didn't want to stay with Johnny, but the idea of going back out into the world, fazed by the blood of people on her hands, was almost too much.

And then the fact that she liked killing. She had sampled it and liked it.

And Squee… she couldn't leave him!

She had to be resolute though. She had fought off the urges and voices before.

Devi's heart thundered as she opened the door to Johnny's house and escaped to the outside world again. She belonged out there, didn't she? She deserved to be with normal people. She didn't want to become a flusher, to become nothing more than an apprentice to Johnny. If she were to be with Johnny, she'd have to give up everything else.

And was she willing to do so?

She didn't know. All she wanted was to feel the soft bed of her apartment and to hug Tenna again.

Devi ran down the street, feeling as if she would have a heart attack any moment. She had made some of the biggest mistakes of her life in the few days her memory was gone.

****

0-0-0

GASP! Shocking plot twist! Aren't you intrigued? This is just _too_ much of me! I changed my original story plans to add lots of suspense! Now that Devi sampled both worlds, and saw that she and Johnny could be together and function, and just how extensive Nny's love for her was, would she go back? Or would she prefer the normal world?

And what about her sudden lust for blood?

This and more, next time! Only here! So review! Or… uh… I'll do… something! YEAH!


	4. Issue 4

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Chapter Four, Part 1: Amazing Jhonen Interview Part 2!

So I bet you are all super interested in learning all there is to know about Jhonen. For one time only, you get this super-amazing, spectacular, very informative interview with the one and only Jhonen.

(**Fast Talking Legal Dude's Voice**: For a limited time offer. Prices are subject to change. Being exposed to Jhonen Vasquez for more than five minutes will force your body to self-destruct and splatter your intestines all over the nearest toddler. That is, unfortunately, a bad, bad thing. This Jhonen Vasquez is not really the real Jhonen Vasquez because the real one is hiding in his magical space station somewhere in his warped little mind, while playing Vice City all night. ***deep breath***)

****

Interviewer Bob: Hi, my name is Bob, and I will interview Jhonen Vasquez.

****

Jhonen: What are you doing in my house?!

****

Interviewer Bob: I have my ways of getting in.

****

Jhonen: Gasp! You have mastered the power of osmosis! *serious face* You must die now. You know too much.

****

Interviewer Bob: At least let me finish interviewing you! ****! (Expletive is Fucking Edited the Hell out of this Shitty sentence).

****

Jhonen: Speak quickly. You are wasting my air space.

****

Interviewer Bob: Are you goth?!

****

Jhonen: I agree, the weather _is_ nice today. *looks outside window* I like monkeys.

****

Interviewer Bob: Yes. Yes, you do. Why are you changing the subject?

****

Jhonen: *does sign language for _I am deaf_*

****

Interviewer Bob: You are _not_ mute! Or deaf! I just heard you talking two seconds ago! At least tell me whether you are working on any new projects?

****

Jhonen: My current project is to get you out of my house. Yes, I am currently very involved in that. *lifts crowbar*

****

Interviewer Bob: What about women? Any women in your life?

****

Jhonen: Depends. Are you a woman in disguise? If so, I am even more disturbed at this point.

****

Interviewer Bob: Do you like Trigun as much as everyone says you do?

****

Jhonen: No.

(**Fast Talking Legal Dude:** Any fictional invasion of Jhonen's house is all Interviewer Bob's fault. Maggie is currently drinking carrot juice that has an inspiring message written on the container: **_We are unique and individual – just like you._** You must know this to add to your vast collection of things you have learned subliminally about Maggie the Author Fanfiction writer of Doom and whatever the rest of her superhero title is. ***deep breath***)

****

o-o-o

Chapter Four, Part 2: Devi Comes Home

Devi burst into her apartment and saw Tenna lying on the couch, a compress soaked in green tea lying on her eyes. Hearing Devi enter, Tenna sat up and slid the compress from her eyes and laid it on the table beside her. " Devi? Where the hell were you for half a week?" Tenna muttered. " The people said you just… bugged out. Something to do with a little boy."

" Hmm." Devi could remember Squee's visit now, very precisely. She frowned, rubbing her temples. " Yes, Squee's visit." She mumbled loudly. " Scary little boys. Yes." She was shivering.

" He wasn't an alien, right?" Tenna frowned. " I know some guy who says he was anally probed by aliens. I think he needs to go out more."

Devi shook her head. " Nope. And he didn't see dead people, either. It was just a spooky little boy." Devi shook her head. " It doesn't matter. I'm home."

Tenna crossed her arms over her chest. " Meanwhile, I'm sitting here, freaking out, wondering where the hell you've been! FUCK, I must have called he cops a thousand times, but they couldn't find you on the computer files. It's like your existence is gone!"

" Flusher. Yeah, I expected that to happen." Devi's hands were shaking violently as she slid them through her hair. She made a face. " I feel sick!" She exclaimed, and ran to the bathroom, fell to the floor, and vomited into the toilet. She knew what she must do (outside of brushing her teeth after spewing vomit out). She had to now choose between two worlds – one she despised for all it did to her, and one that she feared for all it promised her.

" Okay; well, I broke into your apartment just so I could check to see if you didn't pass out or anything. I guess I'll… erm… _leave_ now?" Tenna looked nervous.

Devi nodded in reply and then shivered. This was going to be hard.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Four, Part Three: Johnny Is Not Happy

Johnny thought he'd be capable of doing it. Shutting off the voices. Making his worries go away. Why? Devi was there.

Now he truly and honestly knew he was all alone, doing a job nobody wanted. He sighed and glanced at the wall before him. It had been free of blood for so long now. Yet suddenly he just wanted to kill someone; not for some dark reason, but for a real urge. Yet, the idea of Devi being gone also killed any joy and passion he felt in himself.

Suddenly, he just wanted to die.

But he couldn't, since Squee was around.

__

Maybe if I kill Squee AND myself in a massive murder/suicide… Johnny thought… _Nah. Squee doesn't deserve it._

He looked outside and saw a group of kids standing on his lawn, kicking around a lawn gnome. He jumped up and ran to the window. " Hey! Stop that!" Johnny shouted. Then he looked closer – it was no lawn gnome. It was Squee, lying on the ground in fetal position.

Johnny raced outside.

" AH! Spooky person!" One of the boys shrieked.

" My mom says people like you are the devil!" A little girl sobbed.

They all ran away. It was like a scene from my life. Yay!

Squee looked up, his face smudged with blood, his lower lip split open. He sobbed, tears spilling down his cheeks, and then stood and ran up, hugging Johnny. Johnny didn't remember ever being hugged before. He could remember all the kids suddenly, from his own childhood, standing around him in a circle, calling him Noodle Boy, kicking him down into the dirt. And he remembered lying in fetal position, trying to hide his tears, as they spat on him, their spit running together with his blood. And he'd clench his fists so hard his nails would puncture his skin, and he's lie there, bleeding, squeezing the life out of the grass that he grasped with his fists, as if he were to fall off the face of the earth.

And that horrible shame, that terrible memory of pure and utter pain, raced through Johnny.

And he just held Squee and cried.

(A/N: Gasp! That was depressingly sappy and dark, even for _me_! And like a snapshot out of my own childhood… *sighs*)

****

o-o-o

Chapter Four, Part Four: Devi Goes Out!

Devi didn't sit around moping for long. Third day back, she went out to a club. She figured if she could find some people that were still worthy enough of being her companions, she'd be happy forever. She'd simply and utterly submit herself to them; try to see if there was any worth in living in this society. After all, only her fellow peers could help her decide what the world had come to.

And everyone should go out to a club sometime in their lives, right?

So Devi found herself at the _Shady Dark Place Of Doom,_ sitting in the corner of the room, sipping at a nice little glass of carrot juice. Carrot juice is good.

" Good evening, mortal." Someone hissed from behind her.

She felt chills rip upwards across her back and she turned, half-expecting to see someone unusually scary; half-expecting to see someone oddly attractive.

It was a girl, tall and thin, draped in black. She smirked at Devi. " Why aren't you dancing? Everyone loves this song. Everyone." The girl lowered her eyes. " Unless you don't."

Devi bit her lower lip. " I want to enjoy my drink. Thanks."

The girl slapped her hands down on the table. " You don't _get_ it, do you?"

" Meh?" Devi muttered in a question-format sort of way.

" _Everyone_ likes this song. You can't be one of _us_ if you hate this song!" The girl was hissing between her teeth. " You're making yourself look bad!"

" Actually, you're making _yourself_ look bad." Devi replied coolly. Indeed, a few people were already staring at the weird girl and whispering.

" Oh." The girl sighed. " But I thought this was the most popular song _ever_?"

Devi shrugged. " Last week. Now it's something else."

The girl sat down in front of Devi. " I have to memorize today's popular play list then. I'm Anne Gwysh." (Quite the person to meet when you're debating whether the world is worth living in!)

" Nice to meet you." Devi murmured. " I'm Devi."

" Ugh!" Anne Gwysh exclaimed. " Look at that guy's _face_! Puh-leeze! Can we say _Acutane_?"

Devi looked around nervously. " Are you always so loud when insulting others?" Devi quipped.

" He had it coming." Anne gasped out. " He stepped on the foot of my boot an hour ago. And you know what he said? "Great apologies". GREAT APOLOGIES? What the fuck is that?! He should kiss my feet for having contact with a girl like me." Anne frowned darkly. " Nobody appreciates me."

Devi shuffled around on her seat. " Uh… yes." She muttered finally.

" And can you believe that girl with the Bauhaus T-Shirt? I bet she just found out what Bauhaus is a week ago. I swear, everyone suddenly thinks they're the biggest fan." Anne spewed out.

" Like you weren't in diapers when they were coming out? Maybe you weren't even born yet." Devi hissed finally.

" What do you know?" Anne Gwysh exploded. " You're just another wannabe, aren't you?"

Devi's face was prickling red-hot. This little teenage pipsqueak was a real pain in the ass. She had a flashback to her club massacre. Would she dare?

" Why are you looking at me that way?" Anne Gwysh demanded. " Ew, don't tell me you're gay or something."

Half the club turned and stared. Seems like a majority of the people there _were_ bisexual after all.

Anne Gwysh blushed darkly. " I mean, I totally am _bi_ too! I'm just wondering." She was fumbling, faltering on her own well laid-out façade, trying to figure out what to say next without revealing that she was, basically, a poser.

Devi frowned and stood. " I'm tired." Devi whispered, finally. " Tired and disheartened."
    
    " Don't lie to yourself. You just don't belong out here." Anne Gwysh murmured.

__

Could she be right? _Maybe I don't belong here, _Devi thought.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Four, Part Five: Filler Maggie Steps In!

Maggie stared at her computer screen in disdain. She had much more stuff to write; much, much more. Yet, she feared that if she were to write another word of anything, she'd pass out. She figured maybe if she did pass out, her readers would understand. She lifted her fist, which clutched a crowbar, and cried out: " That's it! My face is pie!" (Yummy!)

Maggie was about to bash herself unconscious when an idea hit her. " Must… stop… fist… of… death…" She whispered angrily, slowly setting her crowbar down. After all; her readers depended on her. And she knew that, eventually, some of these people might go on to read HER comics, once she got them published. Which would take at least three more years. But she could always dream.

Using the last of her strength and will power before she fell over into an insomniac's coma (which comes after many days of no sleep, TRUST ME on that one), she typed:

__

Review. I will hopefully stay alive until the next chapter.

****

Author's Note: Well, a teense shorter than the last chapter, but all in good cause. I just wanted to update. 


	5. Issue 5

****

Author's Note: I cried writing this chapter, but then again, whatever. I cry writing a lot, because my fingers are hurting from typing. Did I cry from this miserable fate, or… otherwise?

****

Chapter Five, Part One: Devi, Come Back!

It wasn't enough that her every waking moment was plagued by haunting images of Johnny's face; and all his words to her; and all they have done so treacherously to the poor young club goers. Now she was seeing him in her dreams, like the thin sickly-green faces of people leaving concentration camps in those old post World War 2 photos.

And, of course, Johnny happened to speak to her in the dreams, though faintly. " I changed." He promised finally. " I made the voices go away. You did too. You're just like me. You know it."

" No I'm not!" Devi woke up shrieking just that very morning. " I am _not_ like you!"

She heard pounding on the wall next door – Tenna was awake. " Devi!" Tenna groaned. " Are you talking to your coffee cup again?"

Devi shouted back: " No! It was a nightmare!"

" Shut up back there!" A voice from down the hallway shrieked. Ah, the beauty of apartment buildings.

Devi blinked sadly and tried to imagine a time where her few hours of sleep were actually undisturbed. Now that she could remember everything, though, she knew she never _did_ sleep soundly. Ever since her first date, she'd been on the path of doom that destined her to be an old bitter maid.

She stood and turned on the television set. No reports of murder? She expected to see reports of new victims daily from Johnny's own madness, but the Weekly Report didn't seem to provide her any luck.

He had grown sedate.

And for that, she feared him all the more.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Five, Part 2: Words of Hate

That evening, Johnny took a lonely walk through the park. Squee was at home, watching television, the god of child babysitting. All he could think about was Devi. Devi gone, Devi part of the normal world, and what Devi could have been to him.

He looked at all the kissing couples in the park and felt ill to his stomach. Must their affection be so obvious? He frowned to himself and stumbled on.

And then – as if by some unusual twist of fate – the crowds split apart and revealed Devi, sitting on a park bench. Her eyes were focused on the magazine in her lap and she was eating some soup from one of those Japanese noodle cups. She looked like a gorgeous flower to his eyes.

Johnny stood there, shivering not from the chill in the breeze, but from his own fear. Suddenly, he had second thoughts. She might not want him back, at all. She might even start screaming, and make an awful scene, and therefore force him to run. And he was sick of running away.

He walked up to her slowly. " Devi?" He asked.

She glanced up, a noodle hanging from her mouth in a most unromantic way, like a slug dribbling from between her lips. Johnny didn't know whether to stare at her lips continuously, or make eye contact, or stare at some other part of her. This was always a problem for him when addressing girls – he would have no idea what to look at. He figured that the breasts or thighs would be most perverted to glance at, so he took the easy route and stared at her shoes.

" Nice boots." Johnny added. The good old pick up line.

She slurped the noodle down nervously and gave him a look that was as fierce as the death glare of a lioness. " Nny?" She whispered, and shot up to her feet. " Listen, I have a Swiss army knife, and enough mace to stun a herd of yaks."

" Well, that's lovely!" Johnny grumbled, then added on: " Can't you trust yourself with me? You slept in my house. I did nothing to you. _Nothing_."

" But those freakish voices in your head might come back." Devi hissed. " And what then? You'll just snap like the lunatic you are and kill me! Fuck, why don't you just back away slowly while you still have a brain to snap?"

Johnny smiled, his teeth pointy and menacing above the curl of his lower lip. " Can't you just let me _talk_ to you?"

" No." She replied.

" When you didn't have your memory, you trusted me. What difference does it make now?" Johnny exploded.

Devi looked down at the soup in her hands. She stared at it long and hard, hoping the artificially colored carrot chunks would tell her something that she should say. Her eyes unfocused and the soup became a blur. Ripples spread across the surface of the soup as a tear fell from her cheek.

Johnny's heart sank. He'd made her cry. " Ack." He murmured, and then looked around nervously. Nobody around them; not for a good knife throw's distance anyway. " Look, Devi, erm…" He fumbled over the words. " Don't cry. I didn't say _anything_ to make you cry."

Her back was shivering. " Leave me alone!" She croaked. " You made me _kill_, Johnny!"

" Good Heavens!" An old lady standing nearby cried out, and then scuttled away, thumping her walking stick as she did.

" There's a squirrel up _someone's_ ass today." Johnny said under his breath, staring at the old lady as she raced off. Then, he turned to Devi and gave her a meaningful look. " What are you so afraid of – me? Or yourself, and what you're capable of? What your destiny might be?"

Devi looked up at him, her eyes a burning red, piercing right into his. " I don't know. Can't you just let me be?" She sobbed.

" Don't you have _any_ feelings for me?" Johnny whispered.

" No." Devi replied hardly. " I don't. I hate you, in fact. I loathe you!" And she threw the soup at him. The hot liquid was scalding against his skin.

Johnny's ears burned hotter than the soup on him as he turned and stalked off, trying to convince himself he looked less stupid than her really did, with a huge puddle in the front of his shirt, creatively in front of his crotch.

At the park gate, he turned and glanced at Devi.

She had pushed the magazine off her knees and to the ground and she'd brought her knees up to her chest. He couldn't see very well, but he thought he saw her crying again.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Five, Part Three: No Life Left To Live

He didn't know how long it had been.

He'd been lying flat on his back on a make-shift bed, staring at the ceiling, wide-eyed, for days and days. He'd only gotten up when nature called for him to remove his own wastes. Unpleasant, but necessary, functions of his mind.

" That's it, then." He whispered to himself finally, as he went out of his blank-out. " I truly and utterly sank the ship of my life. Yes, I've been reduced from human rank to shaved monkey. There's nothing left to do but sit here and think of purple acorns, because…" He laughed bitterly. " … It's all pointless, isn't it?"

Squee was sitting on the floor beside the bed, his eyes huge and significantly frightened-looking. " Mr. Scary Neighbor Man!" Squee mumbled, propping Shmee the teddy bear up against Johnny's cheek. " I thought your brain broked."

Johnny smirked to himself and turned his head, looking directly at Squee. " Squee, you think you could bring that mechanical arm over here and put a bullet in the gun in there?"

Squee shook his head immediately. " N-no way!" Squee gasped.

" Drat." Johnny looked at his hands, which were shaking. " I guess I'll do it myself. If I misfire, I won't have the pleasure of feeling my brains implode, though."

Squee smacked Johnny's face with Shmee as he collapsed across Johnny's chest in a last-minute life-saving effort – a big, merry, little-boy-to-scary-but-nice-adult kind of hug. " No!" Squee shouted. " You can't die, Mr. Johnny!" He crooned on: " I won't know what to doooo…" And suddenly Squee was crying like a little kid again. " They'll just make me go back to the crazy people place, and they always ask me to cut their jelly beans into four pieces for them, but then the mean crazy people there would just take the jelly beans and shove them up their noses and blow them out at me, and stuff."

Johnny shuddered. Hugging was overrated. He patted Squee's head, at the same time slowly moving him away from him, each pat a slight shove backwards in a sense.

Squee was back on his feet, staring at him.

" You can go to Devi. She'll take care of you." Johnny sighed dreamily. " Because I sure as hell won't, not cold as a corpse."

" What if you come back to life?" Squee choked out.

" I won't." Johnny said, his nostrils flaring. " I've used up my Get-Out-of-Hell Free card. Now it's time to die for real, face the last judgement, get my bootie stomped on my some angels on the way to Hell, Blah, blah, blah, yadda, yadda."

" But what _if_?" Squee demanded. " Would you keep killing yourself?"

Johnny shrugged, which was hard to do when lying flat on your back, but he managed. " I think I'll die though. I want to die. Before, it was sort of by surprise, almost. I was all happy because I got a call and such. Now there's nothing to hold me back."

Squee's lip trembled. " Me?" Squee squeaked out squeakily, tongue-twister style.

" Well, yes, but… but with Devi, it's different." Johnny closed his eyes. " Close the window shades. I don't want the sun in here when I die."

Squee shook his head. " I won't let you!"

" Listen, Todd." Johnny's never before called Squee by his real name. The room fell silent. This was really serious now. " Todd, you are a great kid. Really, you are. Don't take this personally. Besides, I thought I scared the shit out of you."

" Less than the rest of the world." Squee admitted. " Besides, I'm kinda used to you." He grinned shyly.

Johnny couldn't smile back. He still kept his eyes closed. With one hand, he reached out and patted Squee's shoulder. " You remember where Devi lives, right? You go find her. She'll let you stay." With that, Johnny pulled the covers up over his head and blanked out again.

" But what if you hurt yourself when I'm gone?" Squee asked.

Squee shook Johnny angrily. " Mr. Nny! Mr. Nny!"

Johnny didn't reply. Johnny could have very well been dead, for all Johnny cared.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Five, Part Four: The Voices, I Hear Them, and When They Talk I Follow… 

" You're weak, Johnny."

Johnny couldn't recognize the voice at first, then it dawned on him.

" Go away!" He cried out hoarsely. " Leave me alone!"

" You are weak."

" Leave – me – alone!" Johnny demanded. " I want to die in peace."

" You haven't cocked the gun. Seems like you're trying to avoid the big finale. You're dancing around the edge but too afraid to jump." The voice persisted.

" Leave, Meat." Johnny spat. " I don't need you."

Reverend Meat's voice droned: " You thought you got rid of me, but my voice lived inside of you. It lived on, and on, and lived on and on, and on, and on, lived on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and lived on, and on, and on, and on, and on, and on…"

" Shut up!" Johnny shouted. " Shut _up_!" His shout hung suspended in the air, the echo bouncing from the eaves in the room.

" You're trying it again. Dislocating yourself from emotion. This time, by death. You're avoiding Devi again. Why not just kill her? You want to get rid of all your troubles, don't you? You want to be rid of her, and that way you can live on without having to face her existence." Reverend Meat whispered. " Admit it. You considered killing her again."

" Of course I did!" Johnny muttered crossly. " But… but I _can't_ do it. I don't expect you to understand."

" Oh! _I _won't understand, huh?" Reverend Meat demanded. " You think I just came out of nowhere? I'm you, Johnny, the stronger part of you. The demonic, the evil part of you, the part that knows what should be done to keep justice and rationale in your mind. In your starved mind, you know you haven't killed in a long time. The last time you have, it was with Devi. Now you can finish what you began in the club – kill the last survivor – her."

Johnny opened his eyes. Reverend Meat was nowhere in sight. He sat up and stared at the gun in the automatic arm. Squee was gone, he'd probably gone to find Devi; the arm was ready. Reverend Meat would never bother him again, in dream or in life. Johnny stood, pulled a bullet from the drawer of the desk, and inserted it into the gun.

He lifted the remote control and a tape recorder from the desk. He turned and sat down on the bed, staring at the gun. It was aimed at the center of his forehead.

Johnny clicked on the tape recorder and began.

__

"Devi, I want you to first of all understand that I'm killing myself to stop the voices. As you said, who knows what they'd make me do if they were to come back. If I were to kill you, I'd loathe myself beyond human capabilities. So first and foremost, I die so you don't have to…"

****

o-o-o

Chapter Five, Part Five: Race Against Time

WHACK. WHACK. 

The windshield wipers roared against the windshield as Devi sped down the road towards Johnny's house, Squee in the backseat. She checked the mirror, from which a rosary hung, and she said to Squee: " Are you triple, _quadruple_ sure he's going to kill himself?" Her lips were bitten raw, she was biting her lower lip nervously for the past ten minutes. Devi could taste the stale iron tinge of blood in her mouth already.

__

"… And I want you to take good care of Squee, because he… oh, shit, I wish I wrote a speech or something… well, Squee's been a great neighbor. And it was fun to scare him. Sorry Squee. Don't let the aliens attack. Heh. He heh ha heh! Tuesdays are alien nights, right? Or was that Thursday?…"

Devi strained her neck out the open window. A huge truck was turning in front of them. " MOVE IT!" She shrieked, the rain splattering all around them. A thunderbolt laced the sky, turning everything into a white wonderland for a second before the shriek and clatter as it hit something.

She pulled her head back inside, her mascara running. Not just from rain, but tears. " God! Why did I say that? Fuck! Fuck!" Devi shouted at the steering wheel.

" Say what?" Squee asked innocently.

" I told him I _loathe_ him! I… I wanted him to go away, to stop bothering with me." Devi moaned out, sobbing. " I thought I'd do just fine with him gone, like I did for the past few months until he came back."

" But could you?" Squee whispered.

" No." Devi replied darkly. " It's like he's become a part of me."

" Me too. My life too." Squee nodded.

" We can't let him do this." Devi said decisively.

" We, erm…" Squee coughed nervously.

" We love him. God, I love him! Fuck!" Devi hissed loudly.

__

" … My house isn't much so I give it to anyone who wants it. Maybe all the bums who actually read Noodle Boy for it's short-lived life. Heh! Bwa ha heh he heh. We all know that they'd make good use of all the torture chambers in here. That's what the world needs, more homicidal homeless people, you know? Add color to the streets. Red color. Blood. Okay, I promised to keep this PG-13 for Squee-ears… right… Devi. Devi, God. Devi, I loved you…"

Devi was now turning the corner, right near Johnny's house. She stopped the car and ran out into the rain, her clothing plastering to her body. She whipped open the back seat and took Squee in her arms. " Squee!" She whispered to the little boy. " How could I have been so stupid? Why didn't I think about my feelings? Why was I so afraid to even consider a life with Johnny?"

Squee didn't know what to say, he just toddled after Devi in the rain as they ran to Johnny's house, number 777.

" And I can't believe I said what I said to him. I mean… it's one thing to tell him that I'm scared. It's another thing to tell him I loathe him." Devi was crying again. " I can't believe I lied. And he's going to die, because I lied. And he's gotta be the only man in the world who'd seriously screwed up a date and I still remained in love with him. Afraid, but in love."

" You can get used to him." Squee shouted over the sound of the rushing rain.

" I'll get used to visiting his grave if we don't hurry it up!" Devi replied.

__

" … So I don't really know, Devi, if you were really in love with me or not. Maybe you were. It's so hard to tell with girls. One minute you're talking about birds and trees and flowers, the next you're threatening to impale us men through the backdoor sphincter on a garden hoe. Heh he heh. But really… I just… I… I wish we could… I don't know. I wish we could have given it a try… I wish you didn't get your memory back. Sometimes your memory is what holds you back, maybe? You live in the past, your life becomes a stained glass window of memories and you can't see clearly through it, because the past influences everything you see afterwards. I guess maybe that's why I'm lucky not to remember. That's why we were able to be so happy for a few days. You were capable of forgiving and forgetting the past…"

Devi ran up the steps of Johnny's house and rattled the doorknob, but it wouldn't open. It was locked.

" No!" She sobbed.

" The secret passage!" Squee exclaimed. " A tunnel, between Johnny's house and mine!"

They ran into Squee's house and started on their way through Squee's basement and into the dark, muddy tunnel. Devi recited prayers to every deity in the world as they did, hoping against hope that Johnny would last long enough – that he was babbling melodramatically in prose-like sentences long enough for them to make it in time.

__

"… But really. There's so much you wish for, right before you die. Stuff that maybe I could have done, if things had gone a bit differently. But they didn't, maybe this was fate. I'm scared… who's going to turn the tape recorder off when the arm fires? I don't know. I…"

" … Devi, Squee. I love you both a lot, I guess. I didn't think I knew what love was, but I guess this psychotic attachment to you guys must be it. The love that disables me from being able to kill you guys…"

" … I…"

" … I'm sorry. For living. For being here and ruining both your lives. I guess it's been my fault."

" … Good bye…."

" Johnny, NO!" Devi shrieked, running out of the tunnel and through Johnny's house. She could her a tape recorded clicking off somewhere far off. Devi raced into the room just as the resounding echo of the arm firing ran through the air.

****

o-o-o

Author's Note: OOH! Did Johnny die or didn't he? I don't even know myself. Depends on the mood I'll be in when I write the next chapter… Did Devi's scream throw him off? Or will she see him, in his splattered-all-over-the-walls-like-raspberry-jam glory?

I am evil. So evil, to stop here.

**__**

Review. Or… Or else you shall never know!


	6. Issue 6

****

Chapter Six, Part One: Interrupted

Devi stared at Johnny.

The gun had fired, loudly, a cloud of smoke filling the room for a second. Then, once the smoke cleared, the dark form of Johnny bled through. He was sitting upwards on the couch, a bit limply.

She looked away and shivered, waiting until all the smoke was gone before she saw him. She didn't want his shattered skull exposed to her slowly, she just wanted to see it, and then run. Devi turned back to face him and then felt a wave of relief flow through her.

Johnny wasn't dead.

He was sitting up, the tape recorder held before his chest. The bullet had hit the tape recorder.

" Nny?" Devi croaked out.

There were tears running down his cheeks. " Why'd you have to do that?" Johnny demanded, not looking at her.

" What? Why did _you_ have to do _this_?" Devi shouted, pointing at the arm and the gun.

" I thought you never wanted to see me again." Johnny shot back. " Quote, 'I loathe you!'."

Devi wiped at her own cheeks, where the mascara had run like black blood from her eyes. She pulled a tissue out of her purse and glowered angrily at Johnny for a few seconds before saying: " You didn't think I'd let you _die_?"

" What was there to stop you?" Johnny asked. " Squee? Last minute guilt-trip? Perhaps you thought you should play the hero, the good guy, to run in here and try to stop me in a final attempt to make peace. I don't want your pity or anything like that, if that's what this is. I just want you to leave."

Squee pushed his way forwards. " Mr. Nny, she doesn't hate you. She _said!_"

" Shh." Devi whispered nervously.

" But you _said_! You said you loved him!" Squee demanded. " Why are you guys such babies?" His voice dropped suddenly. " It's cooties, isn't it?"

Johnny couldn't help but smile. He tossed the tape recorder aside and looked at Devi.

Devi stared at her fingers and then looked up, making eye contact for the first time in many days. She could see things, suddenly, in the dark depths of Johnny's eyes. There was a window of thought behind the pupil and iris, like a reflection of his soul. He was hurting, she could see it, and he loved her. It was unavoidable.

" Johnny." She said, her voice wavering. " I do love you."

The words resounded in Johnny's ears and he wasn't sure what to make of them; he wasn't sure whether it would make much difference to him. He thought hearing it be said would bring him some sort of pleasure, but instead, he just felt sadder and more empty.

" I just don't know if I can deal with being a flusher." Devi looked upset. " I'm stuck choosing between my old life and being a flusher with you. You can't just expect me to… to make a snap decision. This could take months."

Johnny sighed. " Is that what this is all about? Being a flusher?"

Devi nodded finally.

He laughed. Bitterly and darkly, the laughter echoing through the room. " Devi…" He said, finally. " You already _are _a flusher. You are born a flusher. Sooner or later you will snap and become a hermit anyway. That's what happened to me. I was perfectly normal until I just… snapped. Out of nowhere. And that's all I know about _that_."

She wasn't crying anymore. Now she just wiped at the remaining tears on her cheeks and said: " So I have no choice?"

" You have a choice. You can start now and have someone on your side after the snap occurs, or you can go back to your old life, snap, and forget everything. Be all alone." Johnny said.

Devi nodded slowly.

" You don't hate me?" He asked, finally.

" No!" She exclaimed. " No! I love you. I do. It took me forever to realize it, but… but I _do_. Even though sometimes I don't even want to. It's like there's just something destined between us, though."

Johnny nodded. " That's all I needed to know, then. You can go."

" Why?" Devi asked.

He looked up at her, puzzled.

" Who says I'm going anywhere?" Devi grinned.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Six, Part Two: Promises and Decisions

Devi spent the night at Johnny's house. It was odd, them just sitting at the table in his kitchen and talking endlessly, eventually collapsing into a long talk about when they knew that they were in love. They talked about how they could tell, how they dealt with it, what their future could be. They made promises to each other, they talked about the voices and how they'll try to work with them so they don't end up killing one another. And they talked about Squee, and how they could adopt him and somehow become a big happy family.

And finally, they just stared at each other, sated just with being in one another's presence. It was sickening for the author to witness this. Romance was not her thing. Maggie, the author, sipped at her Ginseng Green Tea and sighed dramatically, watching the love-sick couple from outside. Then, she walked on. She was no Peeping Tom.

Johnny felt his cheeks warming with a blush. " I'm sorry." He said, finally.

" For what?" She asked.

" For everything I put you through." Johnny told her. " I don't even know if I'm worthy of you, after all the heartache I made you go through."

" That just makes you worth it even more." Devi replied.

They sat in silence.

" Johnny? Can I do something we began long ago?" Devi asked. " But we never finished?"

" Uh, sure." Johnny wasn't sure what she was talking about.

Devi leaned forwards and kissed him. And he didn't pull back.

Maggie gagged on her tea.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Six, Part Three: Going to Squee's School!

Since flushers could get away with everything under the sun, Devi and Johnny took Squee and decided to go to his school. They would fill out applications stating that they were Squee's parents, and from then on they would be able to give Squee any legal or educational support he needed. After all, the school was getting suspicious why Squee had no parents on file, and why he just attended school anyway after an unusual rumor that he was in the mental hospital.

" So you'll be my Mom and Dad?" Squee asked them, as they walked.

" Eh…" Johnny looked a bit disturbed with the word. " Not really. Maybe a quirky aunt and uncle."

" Quirky?" Devi asked, raising her eyebrows. " I think we're beyond quirky."

They were both walking a good two feet apart, Devi on one side of the pavement, Johnny on the other. They were fine with this; Devi had begun to progress in the very waste-lock idea that the mind was the most powerful passion organ, and that physical demands for love were rarely to never necessary.

" What will my new last name be?" Todd asked nervously.

" Well, since I'm just **C** for all I know, I think we'll keep it Casil." Johnny replied. " I don't feel like changing all your medical forms, Squee."

Devi nodded. " Casil sounds good."

They were standing in front of the school now.

One of Squee's bullies walked by and stared. " Huh? You didn't say you had a spooky older brother and sister!" The bully gaped at Johnny and Devi. " They not gonna beat me up, right? Or your ass is getting spork-invaded at lunch, Todd-Wiener!"

Johnny and Devi exchanged glances.

Devi yanked out her switchblade and pulled it apart, revealing lots of odd mechanisms. " How'd you like to have your eyeballs pulled out with a cork screw?" Devi demanded. " You want them all the way out or just mutilated in your eye sockets?"

The bully gasped. " I'm telling the teacher!"

" Then perhaps we'll get rid of your tattletale mouth first." Johnny offered, yanking out a steak knife.

Squee felt both delighted and terrified at the same time. But he realized if he closed his eyes, he wasn't really a witness, so he didn't have to worry about being complicated into a murder. So, with a bit of a guilty smile, Squee closed his eyes and looked away.

" Todd! Make them stop!" The bully shrieked. " ACK! There's a baseball in my anal walls! NO! OH GOD NO, GOD NO!"

Once it was all good and done, Johnny and Devi wiped their hands on the kid's shirt, smiled at one another, took one of Squee's hands each, and walked on.

Inside the school, they approached the principal's office and knocked on the door.

" The principal!" Squee gasped. " I'm scared of him!"

" When you're with us, fear should be obsolete." Johnny said with a grin.

The principal opened the door. " Whaddya want?" She demanded.

" Uh… we just want to fill out some forms for little Sq—Todd Casil here." Johnny said. " My…"

" Son! Our son." Devi said.

Squee grinned. So they would be his parents after all. But then, wouldn't that make them their son, and would-be flusher? His grin disappeared just a little.

" Come in then, Mr. Casil; Mrs. Casil, and Todd." The principal walked into her dark, disturbingly haunted-looking office.

" She's old." Johnny noted.

" If we tickle her, moths might fly out her butt." Devi added.

Johnny and Devi laughed gently and then sat down in front of the principal's desk.

" Now, I've never seen Todd's parents here before, so I need you both to fill out these forms." The principal laid out some forms. "First, for Mr. Casil."

" Yes?" Johnny asked nervously.

" What's your occupation?" She asked.

" Uh…" Johnny thought hard. " Butcher."

" What do you weigh?"

" Since I'm a butcher, uh… I weigh meat?" Johnny tried.

" Very funny." She glared at him. " I'll put you down as 120 pounds, you emaciated little stick. How old are you?"

Johnny shrugged. " I'd say twenty four, or thereabouts."

" A bit young to have a seven year old son, isn't it?" The principal demanded. " Forgot to use a condom?" She stared at Devi when she said this. " Or did he rape you?"

Squee's eyes widened.

" Please. You're traumatizing my child." Johnny said, rubbing his temples. " And your assumptions that we had sex are lewd and misguided."

" Yeah, play the chaste parents, will ya?" The principal snorted. " Alright, when's your birthday?"

Johnny stared at the walls nervously. There was a picture of a Valentine's Day heart on the wall. " February." He said, and added: "The thirty-first."

" Okay." The principal wrote it down. " Odd, since there are only 28 days in January."

" Oh!" Johnny exclaimed. " So that's what the calendars are like these days?" He attempted for quick recovery. " I don't go out much."

Devi kicked his foot under the desk, wishing Johnny would come up with some better lies. " He's joking!" Devi said with a nervous giggle. " His birthday's really February second."

Johnny nodded.

The principal then said: " Alright. Now, Mrs. Casil, same information for you?"

" I'm twenty four too." She said. " I'm 120 pounds, too… I…" Her brain was clicking slowly. " My job is… painter. Yeah, painter."

" And I also am a comic book artist in my free time!" Johnny butted in.

" Okay." The principal was jotting it all down. " Mrs. Casil, birthdate?"

" February fourth too." She said and immediately frowned angrily at the idea. Oh well, at least they'd save on birthday parties, since they have one on the same day.

Johnny grinned to himself. Squee was beside himself in joy – he would finally have parents to brag about at lunch! When the other kids say, " My dad has cool tires", Squee would be able to say, " See that thing wrapped around **_my_** dad's tires? That's YOUR dad." Squee was feeling confident and brave. He pushed such malicious thoughts out of his mind though. Those were thoughts Shmee would come up with, not Squee.

" Now I need to know your total income." The principal said.

" 15,000 American dollars a year, I think." Johnny said. " Which is just a government handout. Some ancestor of Todd's – er… ours – served in the military. We get the checks in the mail." For the past few months, Johnny had been taking the check from the Casil family's mail, since both the mother and the father were gone, as was the house. What remained were the ruins of the lower floor and the tunnel between Johnny's house and Todd's.

" What house do you live in? Same as before?" The principal ventured.

" No, we're next door. Todd's – our house – was blown up by aliens." Devi answered for them. " It's kind of a bunch of ruins now. We live in the neighbor's house."

" That maniac they were speaking of?" The principal wondered. 

" Oh, he died. Long ago." Squee piped up. " We're just in his house."

" Okay." The principal typed some more and said: " Okay, that's it then. Todd, since you've shown such impressive test results on the IQ test, we'll move you up to the sixth grade. Mrs. Bitters will be glad to take you."

" Huh?" Squee gasped. This was not good.

" I'll have a boy named Dib show you around. Okay, be gone." The principal said, and retreated into her office. (this is an old principal; eventually Zim will come to their school and there will be a new principal then. I just felt like having a freaky old lady principal that has no morals in conversation)!

" Mrs. Bitters?" Johnny asked finally. " Uh… sounds _fun_!"

Devi patted Squee's head and added: " We'll be home late, but tell us about your first day in sixth grade, okay?"

Squee nodded nervously and walked out to face school.

Devi and Johnny had different fish to fry.

****

o-o-o

Chapter Six, Part Four: Maggie's Modern Life!

Maggie was done typing up the next chapter of her story and was smiling deliciously from ear to ear. Why was that? Because she was done, of course! Also, because she had recently come out of a thirty-hour coma. Why was that? Because she didn't sleep for a very, very, very long time. Is that normal? No, no it isn't.

Maggie took a slow, wavering breath. You see, she often gets these unusual insomniac comas. She doesn't sleep, then she passes out and sleeps for a day or two. It usually happens on weekends. Anyway, she knows one thing only when she wakes up from her long and nightmare-plagued sleep – she had to write the next chapter!

And this is her excuse for why she didn't post this sooner… that last chapter was a brutal cliffhanger, wasn't it? But Maggie's dreams sure gave her ideas for future stories! Isn't that nice?

She is still wondering what happened to her life, anyway. I mean… 30 hour coma? Where's Maggie's social life? She spends her free time online or in the library and she only leaves the house to buy green tea or sit in the café at Barnes and Nobles and write poetry. She's so… weird!

With this sudden self-realization, Maggie finished writing this chapter and grinned. Yes; perhaps it is better that she's weird. I mean, she could be on the cheerleading team, or pep squad, or something. She gasped and realized that things were worse with the world than she thought. And she also realized that her reviewers should…

Review. And wait for chapter Seven. Mwa ha ha! 


	7. Issue 62

****

Chapter Seven, Part One: Murderous Duo

Devi felt like killing that morning as she woke up.

She tried to remember the last time she had woken up with a lust for blood, and realized with a pleasant surprise that already her past had clouded over, as if a gauze shroud had slipped over it. Her smile faded though as she noted she was in a room, all alone, sleeping on a foam mattress.

" Johnny?" She asked loudly.

" What is it?" A voice boomed from behind her.

Devi looked up and saw that Johnny was sitting in the corner of the room writing in a little black notebook.

" What're you doing?" Devi asked, eyebrows raised.

" You were sleeping, and I wasn't, so I decided to write." He replied.

" You keep a diary? That's really cute!" She smiled.

" It's really more of a die-ary."

" That's what I said. Diary."

" With D-I-E not D-I-A?" Johnny explained. " Why'd you wake up? You only slept three hours."

" Who are you to accuse _my _sleeping habits? You slept zero." Devi joked. " Besides, I have this… this craving to kill."

Johnny smiled. " Sounds familiar. Feel like acting on it?"

" Yes." Devi said, almost shamefully. " Does this mean I…?"

He nodded. " Welcome to my world."

****

o-o-o

Chapter Seven, Part Two: A Closing Message

Alright, readers, this last chapter was a wrap-up. As all good writers tend to do, I want to leave this story open-ended; there's not much more left for me to say, except that I'm glad Devi decided to be a flusher. Oh yeah, and also that I'll write a new JTHM story very soon; this time aiming for heartbreakingly-serious, and yet hilarious. In other words, unachievable. 

I am delighted that people have actually read my story, and also very pleased to see the feedback and such. I'm happy, so happy! *gets shot like Happy Noodle Boy*

Ugh… Well, I hope Squee has fun living with Nny and Devi. And obviously they like one another! And Squee can be Dib's only friend… awww… reminds me of when I was a little kid. Okay, I promised myself to never think of that time, ever again.

Thanks for reading; this is exactly how I wanted it to end – Johnny saying, "Welcome to my world". I've had that in my mind since the beginning. Cool, huh?

Me, saying goodbye to you all.

**** Give me that one last review, okay? And look out for "The Yearning", my next story, first chapter up today! 


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